John Key woefully out of touch on homelessness

John Key is completely out of touch if he thinks desperate South Auckland families forced to live in cars can simply go to Work and Income for help, Opposition Leader Andrew Little says.

“Many of these families are working and still can’t afford a home in Auckland, where rents have risen 25 per cent in the past five years. Our MPs are inundated with people who are in extreme need but still can’t get on the state house waiting list.

“The Prime Minister has spent years denying there even is a housing crisis. In eight years National has only tinkered around the edges with policies that do little to make up the 40,000 shortfall in houses Auckland faces.

“John Key was this morning out of ideas and out of answers about what his Government will do to help children facing a cold winter living in cars, garages and even tents.

“Instead of meeting New Zealanders in the Koru Club, the Prime Minister should go to South Auckland and meet some of these people.

“John Key said today that homelessness is ‘not the New Zealand we want’ but it’s the New Zealand his Government has created.

“It’s high time National got real about the housing crisis. It should embark on a massive state-backed building programme for affordable housing, clamp down on offshore speculators forcing house prices out of the reach of Kiwi families and build more state houses rather than selling them off,” Andrew Little says.